Are You In?

Nike's Original Run series continues with De La Soul, who are using a late-career corporate sponsorship opportunity to soundtrack your next 45-minute jog.

Perhaps owing to the lingering psychic scars of forced laps in middle school, I don't run. I'm admitting that up front, not as some sort of badge of lazy-ass pop critic pride, but because I've been tasked to review the latest entry in semi-sinister conglomerate/occasional patron of the arts Nike's Original Run series. This time it's De La Soul, using a late-career corporate sponsorship opportunity to both reaffirm their existence and provide an all-new soundtrack for a 45-minute jog.

So caveat emptor for all our fitness-minded readers: I can judge the efficacy of Are You In? only in contexts other than the one intended. But if you, too, are more inclined toward being, well, inclined, know that Are You In? is also an entertaining, intermittently unexpected, and only occasionally unflattering addition to the De La Soul catalog, more or less enjoyable whatever your attitude toward physical exertion. Despite the longest wait yet between De La full-lengths, the trio sounds agreeably engaged, approaching the project less as a formally constricted commission and more as a chance to explore what dancefloor hip-hop might mean in a post-techno world.

The answer seems to be old-school sonics (crashing drum machines, electro-tinged melodies, "Rock Box"-style guitar) spruced up with 21st-century production gloss. Are You In? follows the readymade arc of most "Original Run" entries, stuffing everything into a single track that moves more like a DJ set than an album. Large sections are rap-free, letting the throwback beats steadily turn up the tempo to avoid muscle fatigue. And it opens and closes with relaxed, soul-tinged tunes for working up/wiping down a good sweat. But with a catalog full of smooth but never smarmy low-impact jams, we all know De La are masters of laid-back rap, and for a group that's outlived a few dozen hip-hop trends, "old-school" doesn't describe an embarrassingly nostalgic affectation so much as an expression of aesthetic continuity.

More surprising, if necessarily more inconsistent, are the moments when De La nearly abandon trad hip-hop entirely. While it's commendable they'd avoid simply rewriting their classic material for athletes barely out of tie-dyed onesies when 3 Feet High and Rising dropped, there are definitely missteps. About 20 minutes in, De La drops the kind of high-speed, distorted breaks that would have padded out a pre-crossover Chemical Brothers set. Not sure about referencing "the new style" for a sound that peaked 13 years ago-- is it too early for the big beat revival?-- but better amyl-popping hip-house than throwing rote hard rock wank over jazz-tinged snares. Pretty much any time a guitar pops up on Are You In? it's mildly-to-totally cringeworthy, but I do appreciate nodding to the Delicious Vinyl days of stabbing power chords over 808s.

But while these heavy metal blunders do mar the album's flow-- from a listener's standpoint, if not necessarily a runner's-- they're also evidence of a gratifying restlessness on the part of an act whose audience might have been content with the same old shit. Elsewhere this creative discontent actually pays dividends for longtime fans: Who knew De La would sound so natural rapping over Detroit-ish synth arpeggios? Given its one-off status and unique format, Are You In? is probably a diversion rather than a reinvention, a mixtape-style curio given big business backing, but hopefully some of its reinvigorated sonics find their way to the next proper De La Soul album. Just so long as they avoid anything with six strings and a distortion pedal.